For These Vets, Amateur Radio Remains Alive

Adm. Scott Redd operates a ham radio from Union, Maine, during a contest in which he set an American record for the highest number of contacts — 5,609 — in two days. (Photo provided by Scott Redd)

Satellites killed the military radio star operator long ago, but military veterans keep the art alive in competitions testing their ability to bounce signals off the ionosphere and contact amateur radio stations a half world away.

In their minds, the contestants know technology has gone too far and the days of radio are past. Still, the intimate knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum learned during a career in military and intelligence agencies offers some advantages. And the military’s love for antiquated communications is well established—from their use of signal flags to messages sent, teletype-style, in all capital letters. Ham radio competitions elicit a similar passion—and knowledge of some dying skills.

Current and former military service members will anchor two of the top teams gathering in the Boston area this weekend for what amounts to the World Cup of ham radio, officially the World Radiosport Team Championship 2014.

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Scott Redd, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, is on one of the teams expected to compete for top honors. Current Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Dave Mueller is on another top team with NetApp CEO Tom Georgens. Serving as the grand marshal of the event is Retired Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, himself a ham radio buff.

The event, once every four years, requires teams of two people using identical equipment to contact as many radio operators in as many places as possible in 24 hours. In all, 59 teams from 38 countries are competing.

The basic technology of the radio and the technique of propagating signals has not changed radically. But ham radios, with station automation, computer connections and improved amplification take advantage of technological advances. “Layered on top is relatively cutting edge technology,” said Mr. Georgens. “There is a massive application of technology to drive operator efficiency.”

Winning strategies involve knowing when to try to make huge numbers of rapid contracts in countries that have hundreds of Ham radio stations, like Germany and Russia, and when to pursue contacts on obscure islands that have only one operator, like St. Pierre and Miquelon, a French territory off the coast of Newfoundland.

“The winner of this event will be the one who makes the least amount of mistakes, is able to best engineer a station and troubleshoot problems,” said Chief Warrant Officer Mueller.

The winners also will have to stay awake, Adm. Giambastiani notes. The contest requires operators to making the most of every minute in a 24-hour competition. So contestants must chug enough caffeine to keep focused constantly.

“Fatigue will set in,” said Adm. Giambastiani. “The harder part for the older guys is their bodies aren’t as tough as the youngsters. By 4 in the morning on Sunday you are asking why am I doing this.”

At 69 years old, Adm. Redd, a member of the amateur radio hall of fame, is one of the oldest contestants. He acknowledges the young guys have some advantages, but notes he set a world record last year at age 68. “You can stay competitive in old age and there are not many sports where you do that,” he said.

The amateur radio contests require mastery of Morse Code, something no longer routinely taught in the military, as well as the ability to bounce radio signals off the ionosphere to reach lonely outposts half a world away.

There are some real world military applications, participants note. Special operation forces still use long range radio signals as do Coast Guard cutters on occasion.

Chief Warrant Officer Mueller remembers being on a Coast Guard cutter a few years ago as a the radio operator struggled to establish communications. He stepped in with some recommendations for frequency changes gleaned from his years as a ham radio operator.

There is a strong dose of nostalgia in the competition—most the American competitors all have stories of tuning old ham radio sets in their attics in their youth or learning Morse code with the Boy Scouts. For some young people, building and operating radios in the ‘50s and ‘60s was like learning to code their own app today and send it out on the Internet.

Adm. Redd’s life-long love of ham radio was cemented in 1959 when he struck up a long-distance conversation with an airman he knew as “Butch” serving at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Butch invited the young Scott Redd to visit him if he ever traveled from his home in Iowa to Offutt. When he, his uncle and cousins showed up at the gate one day, the guards at first snickered at them.

“There was a series of phone calls and the guard started standing more and more erect,” Adm. Redd recalled. “All of a sudden it was ‘Yes, sir.’”

The visitors were escorted in to meet Lt. Gen. Francis “Butch” Griswold, the top deputy to the head of Strategic Air Command, Gen. Curtis LeMay.

Over the years, Adm. Redd began competing in ham radio operators, and in 1971 won four out of the five major radio contests held at the time. He had to slow down when he made flag officer, but took it up with gusto again in 2007 when he stepped down from leading the National Counterterrorism Center. Two years later, he won all six major single-operator contests.

“I always wanted to win all the contests, but it took another 35 years before I could get back into it,” he said. “You couldn’t do that in boxing.”

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